REVIEWS
76 | Sight&Sound | November 2019
Reviewed by Matthew Taylor
In the 14 years since his Oscar-winning Jo’burg
gangland drama Tsotsi (2005), South African
filmmaker Gavin Hood has repeatedly eschewed
the local for the geopolitical – more specifically,
the moral quagmire of the ‘war on terror’. Rendition
(2007) and Eye in the Sky (2015) offered multi-
stranded explorations of black-ops extradition
and drone warfare respectively, and even
intervening big-budget misfires Ender’s Game
(2013) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) had
their fantastical narratives laced with real-world
frissons. Official Secrets, which dramatises the
case of GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun,
takes place immediately before and after the
2003 invasion of Iraq. But as scripted by Hood and
co-writers Gregory and Sara Bernstein, the tale’s
key events – incorporating government leaks,
perceived fake news and underhand collusion by
global superpowers – feel remarkably timely.
Gun (played with solemn conviction by
Keira Knightley), a translator of Mandarin at the
intelligence hub in Cheltenham, has her world
turned upside down after she casually views an
email forwarded by an official at the US National
Security Agency. The missive requests the UK’s
complicity in a covert bugging operation of six
‘swing nations’ on the UN Security Council – the
objective being to coerce them into passing the
crucial second resolution approving an invasion.
Outraged, Gun leaks the email to the Observer,
where it’s fashioned into a front-page scoop by
home-affairs editor Martin Bright (Matt Smith).
But the potential scandal is muted by a simple
transcribing error, and the invasion ploughs ahead.
At the same time, the anxiety-ridden Gun spills
the beans to her superiors and faces being charged
with breaking the UK’s Official Secrets Act.
Hood does solid procedural work juggling the
various contrasting locations and a colourful
gallery of peripheral players that includes
maverick journos Ed Vulliamy (Rhys Ifans) and
Yvonne Ridley (Hattie Morahan), human-rights
lawyer Ben Emmerson (Ralph Fiennes) and
Shami Chakrabarti (Indira Varma), former head
of civil-rights group Liberty. But in spite of the
myriad threads that temporarily sideline Gun
as a character, it’s Knightley’s intensely focused
performance that sustains the film. She inhabits
Gun with an almost ascetic bearing, especially
when her drawn countenance is placed against
the sepulchral gloom of the GCHQ environs.
Her loving but increasingly fraught relationship
with husband Yasar (Adam Bakri), a Turkish
Muslim without official citizenship, proves
a particularly fruitful avenue for the writers:
in one powerful scene, Yasar berates Gun for
failing to take into account her privileged
position in leaking the memo, and for not
anticipating the fallout for somebody like him.
Chronicling Gun’s annus horribilis in
methodical, albeit sometimes ponderous
strokes, the film elicits a palpable chill as the
full, sinister weight of the state apparatus
bears down on Katharine and Yasar. There
are familiar spy-movie pleasures to be had,
too – one secret rendezvous between Ridley
and Bright in a subterranean car park has a
distinct Deep Throat flavour to it. For Hood, it’s
sound evidence that going back to the well –
especially when it concerns a true-life account as
incendiary as Gun’s – can still reap rewards.
Official Secrets
USA/United Kingdom/Switzerland/People’s Republic of China 2018
Director: Gavin Hood
Certificate 15 111m 38s
UK, 2003. Katharine Gun works as a translator at the
British intelligence agency GCHQ. She sees an email
from an official at the US National Security Agency,
requesting the UK’s cooperation in the covert bugging
of six UN countries, the objective being to pressure
them into passing a crucial resolution approving the
planned invasion of Iraq. Appalled, Gun leaks the email
to the ‘Observer’ newspaper, where it subsequently
appears on the front page. However, a sub-editing error
leads to the exposé being discredited, and the invasion
goes ahead. Under scrutiny, Gun confesses to leaking
the email and is removed from her position. She is
arrested but released pending charges of breaking
the UK’s Official Secrets Act. She is contacted by
human-rights lawyer Ben Emmerson, who offers to take
on her case with the help of Amnesty International. In
the meantime, Gun’s husband Yasar, a Turkish Muslim,
is targeted for deportation; thanks to Emmerson’s
interventions, Gun manages to prevent his departure.
When Gun is formally charged months later, she
tells Emmerson that she will plead not guilty, as her
actions were taken to prevent imminent loss of life in
an unlawful war. Emmerson’s defence team requests
the admission of government documents disclosing
advice sought regarding the legality of any invasion.
Gun appears in court, but the case is dropped when
the prosecution declines to offer any evidence.
Produced by
Ged Doherty
Elizabeth Fowler
Melissa Shiyu Zuo
Written by
Sara Bernstein
Gregory Bernstein
Gavin Hood
Based on the book
The Spy Who Tried
to Stop a War by
Marcia Mitchell,
Thomas Mitchell
Director of
Photography
Florian Hoffmeister
Editor
Megan Gill
Production Designer
Simon Rogers
Music
Paul Hepker
Mark Kilian
Re-recording
Mixer/Supervising
Sound Editor
Craig Mann
Costume Designer
Claire Finlay-
Thompson
©Official Secrets
Holdings, LLC
Production
Companies
Entertainment
One presents in
association with
GS Media and
Screen Yorkshire
A Classified Films
and Clear Pictures
Entertainment
production
In association
with Silver Reel
A Gavin Hood film
Classified Films
Limited supported
by the Yorkshire
Content Fund
Executive Producers
Mark Gordon
Matt Jackson
Sara Smith
Gavin Hood
Claudia Bluemhuber
Anne Sheehan
Hugo Heppell
Lucy Wainwright
Cast
Keira Knightley
Katharine Gun
Matt Smith
Martin Bright
Matthew Goode
Peter Beaumont
Rhys Ifans
Ed Vulliamy
Adam Bakri
Yasar Gun
Ralph Fiennes
Ben Emmerson
Conleth Hill
Roger Alton
Indira Varma
Shami Chakrabarti
Jeremy Northam
Ken Macdonald
John Heffernan
James Welch
Monica Dolan
Fiona Bygate
Tamsin Greig
Elizabeth Wilmshurst
Hattie Morahan
Yvonne Ridley
In Colour
[2.35:1]
Distributor
Entertainment One
You’ve got mail: Keira Knightley
Credits and Synopsis
PR-friendly conquests of a famous Lothario,
but as earnest quests for connection.
One early girlfriend shapes his literary tastes;
another supports him when success strikes; Kylie
Minogue and Helena Christensen comprehend
and share the strain of fame; Paula Yates
transforms him by having his child. Having these
women (the late Yates apart) speak for themselves,
at some length, proves a simple but strikingly
effective means of positioning them as intimates
and peers rather than arm candy. Hearing them
without seeing them, meanwhile, puts the
focus on their stories, not their appearances – a
small but significant adjustment when it comes
to women such as Minogue and Christensen,
whose looks have often spoken for them.
It’s inevitable that Hutchence’s final
relationship, with Yates, plays out at more of a
remove, since neither party is around to speak
about it for themselves. Here again Lowenstein
adopts a careful balancing act, evoking in no
uncertain terms his subject’s great love for Yates,
without camouflaging the clear signals that
Hutchence’s friends and family had reservations
about an affair that commenced in high drama
while Yates was still married to Bob Geldof and
became a tabloid obsession. “He just wanted
to please her,” says Hutchence’s agent Lesley
Lewis, “but whilst it was all about her, there
was a lot of drama.” No shortage of that over
Michael Hutchence’s lifetime, but this film
does a diligent and tender job of eulogising the
vulnerable man behind the various masks.
A documentary about the rock
musician Michael Hutchence.
After a childhood spent between Australia and
Hong Kong, Hutchence forms INXS with friends,
including co-songwriter Andrew Farriss, in the late
1970s. During the 1980s, INXS becomes globally
successful and Hutchence, despite his shyness, a
star and sex symbol. An ambivalent relationship with
fame sees him attempt to break away with a solo
project, Max Q. He engages in high-profile romances
with Kylie Minogue and Helena Christensen. A head
injury damages his sense of smell and taste, leaving
him depressed and prone to bursts of aggression.
He begins a relationship with British TV presenter
Paula Yates, and is thrilled to become a father, but her
fraught custody battle with her husband Bob Geldof
results in intense press attention and personal strain.
In 1997, Hutchence is found dead by hanging in a
hotel room in Sydney. The autopsy reveals hitherto
unreported brain damage from his earlier injury.
Producers
Maya Gnyp
John Battsek
Sue Murray
Mark Fennessy
Richard Lowenstein
Lynn-Maree Milburn
Andrew de Groot
Writer
Richard Lowenstein
Cinematography
Andrew de Groot
Editors
Richard Lowenstein
Lynn-Maree Milburn
Tayler Martin
Composer
Warren Ellis
Sound Designers
Robert MacKenzie
Mick Boraso
©The Australian
Broadcasting
Corporation & Ghost
Pictures PTY Ltd
Production
Companies
Screen Australia,
British Broadcasting
Corporation,
The Australian
Broadcasting
Corporation present
in association with
Baird Films and Film
Victoria a Passion
Pictures & Ghost
Pictures production
Produced in
association
with the BBC
Executive
Producers
Maiken Baird
Domenico Procacci
Helen Bands
Anna Godas
Oli Harbottle
Shaun Miller
Aldo Pace
Glenys Rowe
Andrew Ruhemann
Paul Wiegard
Dolby Atmos
In Colour
[2.35:1]
Part-subtitled
Distributor
Dogwoof
Credits and Synopsis
A RT
PRODUCTION
CLIENT
SUBS
REPRO OP
VERSION
Reviews, 19
